Chandigarh City Dialogue on Air Quality and Transportation Challenge: An Agenda for Action

Chandigarh, May 24, 2013

The collaborative workshop on Air quality and transportation challenge: An agenda for action in Chandigarh was a joint initiative of the Chandigarh administration and the New Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment. The city dialogue, held on May 24, 2013 in J. W. Marriott, Chandigarh was attended by nearly 110 participants.

The objective of this meet was to discuss critical issues of air quality management, public health protection, and the challenges of public transport and congestion. This forum will captured the learning from initiatives adopted in Chandigarh and share experiences from Delhi and other cities to evolve strategies for future policy action.

CSE released its findings and assessment of Rapid Perception Survey and was continued by selected citizen stakeholders of Chandigarh who gave their take on mobility conditions and required strategies for the city on this occasion. The survey was conducted to understand people’s perception of air pollution and mobility problems in the city. This was addressed by K.K. Sharma, Adviser to the administrator, Chandigarh administration; V.K. Singh, Finance Secretary, Chandigarh administration. Among the other panelists who participated were, Anvita Arora, Director and CEO, Innovative Transport Solutions (ITRANS), Delhi; Laghu Parashar, consultant, Urban Mass Transit Company Limited (UMTC), Delhi; Sumit Kaur, Chief Architect, Urban Planning Department, Chandigarh Administration; Navdeep Asija, Technical Advisor to the Department of Transport, Rajesh Kumar, Head, PGIMER School of Public Health, Chandigarh; and Harman Sidhu, President, ARRIVE SAFE, Chandigarh.

This inter-city dialogue on our common challenges and solutions across cities is part of an experience sharing dialogue series initiated by clean air and mobility programme of CSE to build up a nation-wide debate on the grass root challenges of mobility and public health crisis in our cities.

The amazing range and depth of discussions and debate on air quality and mobility challenges during the dialogue will continue to enrich our knowledge and strengthen our action in Chandigarh. This is possible because of the valuable and insightful vision shared by our deeply revered panel members who are also reputed experts in their fields and representative of the different stakeholder communities including participants from civil society, academia, press, students as so on.

The Chandigarh dialogue forum discussed and debated on issues related to air quality benefits of first generation reforms, emerging air quality and health challenges, issues related to sub-utilisation of public transport systems including the tramways in the city and poor facilities for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users. The expert panel recommended that parking norms should be tightened across the city and the city must shift focus from car centric development towards providing mobility choices to majority of people who either walks, cycle, or take public transport.